'I swear I'Il pIuck up my courage,' he toId himself. 'I'II speak to her this very day, by God I wiII.'
It was after six in the evening, the hour when white acacias and IiIacs smeIl so strongly that the air and the very trees seem to congeal in their perfume. The band pIayed in the town park. Horses' hooves rang on the road. Laughter, voices, banging gates were heard on aII sides. SoIdiers they met saluted the officers, schooIboys bowed to Nikitin. StroIIers, and those hurrying to the park for the music, alI obviousIy enjoyed Iooking at the riders. How warm it was and how 184 the russian master
soft the clouds looked, scattered at random about the sky, how gently soothing were the shadows of the poplars and acacias—shadows reaching right across the wide street to grasp the houses on the othcr side as high as their first floors and balconies.
They rode on out of town, trotting down the highway. Here was no more sccnt of acacia and lilac, nor band music—-just thc smell of fields and the bright green of young rye and wheat. Gophers whistled, rooks cawed. Wherever one looked all was green apart from a few black melon-plots here and there, and a white streak of late apple- blossom in the graveyard far to their left.
They passed the slaughterhouses and brewery, they overtook a military band hurrying to the country park.
'Polyansky has a fine horse, I admit,' Masha told Nikitin with a glancc at the officer riding beside Varya. 'But it does have its blemishes. The white patch on its left leg is wrong, and you'll notice it jibs. Thcre's no way of training it now, so it'll go on jibbing till its dying day.'
Like her father, Masha was keen on horses. To sec anyone else with a fine horse agony to hcr, and she liked faulting other people's mounts. Nikitin knew nothing about horses, though. Reining or curbing, trotting or galloping—it was all one to him. He just felt he looked out of place, which \vas why he thought the officers must attract Masha more than he, being so much at home in the saddle. And so he was jealous of them.
As they rode past the country p.irk someone suggested calling in for a glass of soda water. They did. The only trees in this park were oaks just coming into leaf, and through the young foliage the whole park could be seen—bandstand, tables, swings and crows' nests like huge fur caps. Dismounting ncar a table, the ridcrs and their ladies ordered soda water. Friends strolling in the park came up, including an army medical ofiicer in riding boots and the bandmaster awaiting his bands- mcn. The doctor must have taken Nikitin for a student because he asked whcthcr he had come ovcr for the summer holidays.
'No, I live hcrc,' Nikitin answered. 'I teach at the high school.'
'Rcally?' The doctor was surprised. 'So young and tcaching already?'
'Young indeed ! Good grief, I'm twenty-six!'
'You do have a beard and moustache, yet you don't seem more than twcnty-two or thrce. You certainly do look young.'
'Oh, not again—what bloody chcck!' thought Nikitin. 'The fellow takes me for a whipper-snapper.'
It riled him when people said how young he looked, especially in women's or schoolboys' company. Ever since coming to town and taking this job he had fonnd himself disliking his own youthful appearance. The boys were not afraid of him, old men called him 'young chap', and women would rather dance with him than listen to his long speeches. He would have given a lot to be ten years older.
From the park they rode on to the Shelestovs' farm, stopped at the gate and called for the bailiff's wife Praskovya to bring them fresh milk. But no one drank it—they just looked at each other, laughed and started cantering back. As they rode back the band was playing in the country park, the sun had sunk behind the graveyard, and half thc sky was sunset-crimson.
Again Masha rode with Nikitin. He wanted to tell her he was madly in love with her—but said nothing, afraid of the officers and Varya hearing. Masha was silent too. Sensing why this was and why she rode beside him, he felt so happy that everything—earth, sky, town lights, thc brewery's black silhouette—blended before his eyes into something delightfully soothing while Count Nulin seemed to float on air, wanting to climb the crimson sky.
They arrived home. A samovar hissed on the gardcn table at one edgc of which old Shelestov sat with some friends, officers of the local assizes. As usual hc was criticizing someonc.
'It's the act of a bounder, an utter bounder—yes, of a bounder, si r.'
Since falling in lovc with Masha, Nikitin had found everything about the Shelestovs to his liking—their house, its garden, afternoon tea, wicker chairs, their old nanny and even the old man's favouritc word, 'bounder'. Hc only disliked the horde of cats and dogs and the Egyptian pigeons moaning lugubriously in their big cagc on the terrace. There were so many dogs about house and yard that he had learnt to distinguish only two since meeting thc family—Bluebottlc and Fishfacc.
Bluebottle was a small, mangy, shaggy-muzzled, spiteful, spoilt little tyke. She hated Nikitin, and at sight ofhim would put her head on one side, barc her tceth and cmbark on a long, liquid, nasal-guttural snarl. Then she would sit undcr his chair, and givc a grcat piercing pcal of yelps when he tricd to chase her away. 'Don't be afraid,' his hosts would say. 'She's a good little dog.'
Fishface was a huge, black, long-legged hound with a tail like a ramrod. During tca and dinncr it usually stalked silcntly bencath the table, banging that tail on boots and table-legs. This was a good- natured, stupid hound, but Nikitin couldn't stand it because it would put its muzzle on your lap at mealtimes and slobber on your trousers. He had often tried hitting its large head with his knife handle, had flicked its nose, cursed it, complained. But nothing saved his trousers from spots.
Tea, jam, rusks and butter tasted good after the ride. Everyone drank his first glass with silent relish, but by the second they were already arguing. It was always Varya who began these mealtime disputes. She was twenty-three. A good-looking girl, prettier than Masha, she was considered the cleverest and most cultured person in the household and she wore the responsible, severe air befitting an older daughter who has taken the plact: ofher dead mother. As mistress of the house she felt entitled to wear a smock when she had guests, she called the officers by their surnames, and she treated Masha as a child, addressing her in schoolmistressy style. She called herself an old maid— she was quite sure she was going to get married, in other words.
Every conversation, even on the weather, she needs must convert into an argument. She was a great one for quibbling, detecting inconsistencies, splitting hairs. Start talking to her and she would be glaring into your face, suddenly interrupting with a 'now,just you look here, Petrov, you were saying the exact opposite only the day before yesterday'. Or she would smile sardonically with an 'ah,so now we're advocating the principles of the secret police, are we? Hearty congratu- lations!' If you made a joke or pun she'd pitch in at once with her 'feeble' or 'dead as a door nail'. Or, should an officer jest, she would give a scornful gumace and call it 'barrack-room wit', rolling her Rs so impressively that Bluebottle would growl back from under a chair.
Today's teatime quarrel began with Nikitin talking about school examinations and Varya interrupting.
'Now, you look here, Nikitin. You say the boys have a hard time. And whose fault is that, pray? For instance you set the eighth form an essay on Pushkin as a psychologist. Now, in the fmst place you shouldn't set such difficuJt subjects. And secondly how can you call Pushkin a psychologist? Shchcdrin, now, or Dostoyevsky, say—that's a different story. But Pushkin is a great poet and nothing more.'
'Shchedrin is one thing, Pushkin is something else,' Nikitin sulkily rejoined.